OUR HOLLYWOOD HISTORY (7/10) The movies have always had a love affair with "Bad Boys". Fans love rugged, hard-living, hard-partying characters who break all the rules, get all the girls and somehow end up on top. Sometimes it works in the studios' interests to imply that the actors playing those parts aren't far removed from the characters they make famous. The stories about Errol Flynn, Sinatra's "Rat Pack" and other stars...

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It never fails, does it? You get wrapped up in a couple of projects, spend the remaining waking hours trying to keep the regular portions of your life operating normally and one day, you wake up, glance at the calendar and say, "Whoa! It's the last week of Summer!". That was fast! And so is this! Enjoy Your Sunday! ...

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OUR HOLLYWOOD HISTORY (6/10) Just like every other kid, Del Lord dreamt of running away with the Circus. Life was boring in his hometown of Grimsby, Ontario and it wasn't much better in nearby Niagara Falls where his widowed mother moved them to find work. But in his 14th Summer, a circus camped at the Falls for several months and its clowns took pity on the skinny kid who came by every day to watch them rehearse. They soon...

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OUR HOLLYWOOD HISTORY (5/10) Allan Dwan was born in Toronto in 1885, the son of a snake oil salesman who fled the city in 1893, taking his family to Chicago where he went into politics. According to Dwan, "It was just the natural progression". The elder Dwan prospered in his new line of work for as Allan would also later say, "All politicians prospered in Chicago". As a result, Allan soon found himself able to attend Notre...

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On July 27th, journalist Tim Knight caused quite a stir by stating that he had finally lost all respect for CBC's National newscast. The cause of Mr. Knight's displeasure was that the date marked Canada's official departure from combat in Afghanistan. It was a historical moment, one that had been discussed endlessly on CBC for a decade. Yet, when it arrived, despite the price in blood and treasure that the war had extracted,...

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OUR HOLLYWOOD HISTORY (4/10) Joseph Louis De Grasse was born in Bathurst, New Brunswick in 1873. By the time he died in 1940 in Eagle Rock, California, he would be remembered as one of the Silent Era's most respected directors. What wasn't known until much later, was that without Joe De Grasse many Hollywood stars would have died destitute and forgotten. One of 11 siblings, Joe was still a child when his father moved the...

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I've always believed that you fall in love with a city at night. During the day, it's full of people doing all the things that each particular city does best -- being the "Big Apple", the "Hog Butcher to the World", the "City that Never Sleeps"… But when those people go home to their own lives, the city gets to be itself, gets to be all that all the generations who've lived there have made it. Night's...

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OUR HOLLYWOOD HISTORY (3/10) The official story reads as follows: Florence LaBadie was born in Montreal, Quebec on April 14, 1896, the daughter of a prominent banker. She was schooled at the illustrious Convent of Notre Dame. At the age of 8, she auditioned, without her parents' knowledge, for a part in a play. The director realized the little girl was not only quite talented but could memorize lines after a single read of...

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OUR HOLLYWOOD HISTORY (2/10) Most comedy writers know this one… Q: Ask me the secret of writing great comedy! A: Okay. What's the secret of writing great… Q: …Timing! Not a joke that works as well in print. But nonetheless true -- a key component of comedy is knowing when to surprise the audience and when it's better to let them sense the joke that's coming and enjoy the payoff. Watch any Roadrunner & Wile E. Coyote...

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OUR HOLLYWOOD HISTORY (1/10) The Canadian film scene is rife with stories of actors, writers and directors who, for one reason or another, go to Hollywood and become iconic Cinematic and television names. We'd be here all day if I had to list them, and some say as much as 1/3 of what we see on our movie and TV screens is there because of someone who got their start in Canada. The central premise to almost all those expatriate...

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I've always believed that most of the world's problems could be solved and all of our personal prejudices eliminated if people just travelled more.There's nothing like being in unknown places among people with whom you share little in common to realize -- despite different beliefs, aspirations and ways of doing things -- how similar our lives, and we,  really are.I've had the good fortune to visit much of the planet...

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